shot down!
by Adreus
Summary: Orbital and Obomi get married, Ryouga and Yuuma get to second base, and Vector saves Rio from IV.


**Notes**: pbbbbt i just wanted to have bekurio dance.

_shot down!_

* * *

Vector saves her from IV.

Now _there's_ a thought she never thought she'd have.

"I could've done _that_ myself," she says, nodding at IV's retreating form, where the punch is still dripping down the back of his white shirt and he's still fidgeting with the ice, too, and if that isn't a death glare, Ryouga isn't in love with Yuuma.

"And _ruin_ your new dress?" quips the bleeding—literally, his lip's torn from where IV punched him—redhead, and Rio rolls her eyes, pushes him out of the way.

"Not new," she points out, and turns on her heel.

"New to me," Vector shrugs, and gleefully follows after her.

IV wasn't even doing anything wrong. Actually, he's been kind of sweet to her since their return, in a sorry-for-burning-your-face, now-I'm-searching-for-redemption-and-trying-to-find-my-new-self, kind of way. With Ryouga he's still loud and obnoxious, because they've kind of established their dynamic, ineffectual homicide or not, but with Rio… IV is calmer. More reserved. More careful. And she gets it, really, she does, It's just that she doesn't want to _deal_ with it. Not now. Not here.

She was just telling IV how she thought she saw someone from the student council over there, and she should go say hi, they look kind of lost—when she actually _did_ see someone over there, walking up to them with his shining, Shingetsu smile, and, yeah, Rio? Took three steps back when she noticed he was armed.

"Wow! It's the legendary IV-sama, is it?! I'm _honored_ to meet you, Suspenders-san!" said the guy in the tux, and promptly turned the cup over and poured it down IV's back, and when Vector's teeth got knocked out, Rio laughed.

Now she's making him hold her purse.

"C'mon, _Merag_," he says, and he's invited himself to going through her stuff, s'got her lipstick and is trying it on and making faces in the gleaming metal wall. "You can't honestly tell me I didn't just _save_ you."

She snatches it back, slams his head down so hard there's an audible crack (he'll live), takes one look at the stick, and makes a face.

"Indirect ki~ss," he sing-songs.

"_Keep it_," she grits through her teeth, and shoves it back in his hands.

"Nah." He flings it behind him, where it lands in the punch bowl. "Not my color, ya feel me?"

"No. I do not _feel_ you. I will never _feel_ you. And, for the record? You didn't just save me."

He gasps, loud and dramatic and with his hands covering his mouth, and she wonders if she'll be suspended from the student council if she rips them into pieces and throws them in the punch bowl, too.

"But _Merag_!" He exclaims, and _god_ is his voice annoying. "He lit you on _fire_! He could do it again, you know?"

"Vector?" She's sharp. So are her heels. "You killed me. Three times."

"I don't like to _brag_—"

"Stop coming on to me."

"Coming ON to you?! Me?! MERAG, I would NEVER—"

She crosses her arms and taps her foot. His grin bares his teeth.

It's a Sunday night in Heartland City, and that afternoon Rio, her brother, and their four housemates made their way to the center of town for a wedding. The invitations were signed Tenjou Kaito and didn't mention a bride or a groom, so the seven of them assumed that it was Kaito and his boyfriend tying the knot, and prepared themselves to crash his party accordingly.

It was not Kaito and his boyfriend.

It was his robot.

Ryouga had put it most potently: "What the fuck."

Kaito, who looked kind of tired and defeated in his usual outfit, just said, "She's pregnant."

To which Ryouga made a whole range of colorful expressions, from more what-the-fuck to confusion to where-do-babies-come-from, and Rio was uninterested in asking or answering, so she just sort of pushed him in Yuuma's general direction and watched the range of expressions switch to another set, which, wow, embarrassing. The others swiftly broke into parties of two—Durbe and Mizael, Alit and Gilag—and left her alone by the food, which, you know, fine, she could socialize without them. Most of the party is her friends, after all, Yuuma and his family and Kaito and his little brother and the Arclights and Kotori and hey wait a second—

"How'd you even get in here?" she asks him, momentarily forgetting that engaging at all is a dumb idea.

"Hmm?" he says, tilting his head, and his grin is lopsided and she already doesn't care to know anymore. "Well, you _see_, Merag, I know Nasch isn't very fond of them but there's this absolutely _amazing_ thing that mankind's thought up called a 'door'—"

She deadlegs him. He falls on his knee, and she has to catch her purse.

Whoops.

"_OUCH_! You're so _cold_, Merag!" He pouts, squinting at her with one eye and rubbing at his leg with the other, and she just raises an eyebrow, and he's up again with a roll of his eyes and the slightest limp. "I was _invited_, of course."

"The invitation didn't say to bring our pet leech."

"I'm hurt! Is it _so_ hard to believe?" She gives him a look again, and he smirks, steals a shot from a passing waiter, slurps at it, and promptly chokes.

"And here I thought you loved motor oil," she says, and his deadpan expression is fantastic enough to put her in a good mood, so she yoinks her own drink from another waiter—this one carrying, you know, actual punch—and takes a single sip before emptying it in his direction. "Want a taste?"

Vector smiles, one of those big, wide grins that make it look like his eyes are closed and, with the punch all over him, like a serial killer—which, well—and then he sticks out his tongue and licks all around his face, which would be fantastic if he remembered the lipstick—which, you know, he didn't, so he gets a taste of it and gags, kind of chokes, and his leg isn't any good so he nearly trips, too, and Rio gets the perfect view of it all.

Slowclap.

* * *

"If nothing else," Rio notes, hours later when she's exhausted her time with every unpartnered person at the party, dances with Kotori and Haruto and III and even Ponta, who she'll take over IV or Vector any day, thank you, "you're good for keeping Ryouga away from me and in Yuuma's arms."

(For the past few minutes, it's looked less like Ryouga and Yuuma're dancing and more like Ryouga, having finally noticed Vector's presence, is squinting in their direction and shielding Yuuma from the guy's… aura, or something).

"I also work on Arclights and Mizael," he says offhandedly, and he's apparently nicked her nail file, which. Gross? Now he owes her two new ones. "Betcha three hundred bucks they'll hit second."

Wow. That's an image she needed.

"You're disgusting."

"Kind of," he says, and puffs at his nails.

* * *

"Vector."

"Yeeeeeees?"

"Stop."

"Huuuuuuh? But _Merag_, I'm not doing any—"

"_Stop_."

He giggles.

* * *

Orbital and Obomi have officially been married for three hours, Gilag and Alit are passed out by the cake, Mizael is harassing Kaito and Durbe is no where to be seen, and Rio _really_ wants to go home.

How long can robots slow dance?

"Ya knooooow," he starts, and she flinches, because he's like the thing that wouldn't shut up, then shut up for a few minutes and it was nice while it lasted because then he started _talking_ again, and he can't _sit_ in one place for longer than two seconds and—. "If you're boooored, Merag—"

"Don't."

"Everyone _else_ is—"

"_No._"

"Ri~o~chan~san—"

She stands up and faces him. Grabs his arm, pulls him up. Pushes up his sleeve, twists his skin, and shoves him back in his seat.

Smirks, satisfied at the utter confusion as he stares at his wrist, _why does this hurt_, (_xoxo, asshole_), and Rio sits down.

* * *

He limps to the bathroom and comes back with a video.

She doesn't believe him.

He invites her to check for herself.

She forks over three hundred, and wonders if she should tell Kaito to lock his door next time.

* * *

When the fourth hour begins, Rio seriously considers just taking her brother's bike for a ride and making him walk home (or, you know, stay the night). Vector is still around her, mostly because no one wants to dance or having anything to do with Vector and/or the air he breathes, and Rio's cranky and wants to go home and is also very single—which, you know, no problem, but can everyone who _isn't_ single maybe do whatever at _home_?

Vector keeps asking to dance, too, which was stupid the first two times and annoying the third, fourth, and fifth, but now it's just getting kind of desperate and if Vector could _not_ pretend to have a crush on her it'd be swell. Nothing's keeping _him_ here except bothering her, which, yeah, generally where he gets his shits and giggles, but come _on_.

"Don't you have some elementary schoolers to terrorize or something?"

"It's Sunday."

Oh, right. Evil rests on Sundays.

Where the _hell_ is Ryouga?

* * *

She sees IV coming back again before Vector does, weighs her options, and this time when he gigglesnorts and starts, "_Me~ra~gu~_?" she takes his hand and hisses, "Break a leg."

"Y'already did that for me," he says, pleasantly, and tries to lead, which, um, no.

He's actually pretty good, which is stupid, but it doesn't stop him from smelling like a dumpster and having punch down his shirt and Rio's stolen lipstick on his lips and, you know, he's still kind of a homicidal freeloading asshole.

"C'mon, Merag," he says, just soft enough so that IV thinks they're talking about something secret, "with _Ou-sama_ and _Leader-san_ being all lovesick all the time, you can't _honestly_ tell me you weren't _lonely_ before I—"

She stomps on his foot. The one with the limp.

"Nope."


End file.
